Media musings from Cincinnati and beyond

Their
highly accurate texts were created without seeing the scrolls and they
shattered secrecy created by a cabal of scholars who for decades
restricted other researchers’ and translators’ access to the ancient
documents.

Steve
Rosen’s recent Page 1 story in the Enquirer got that right. The other
scoop was my 1991 Enquirer story reporting Wacholder and Abegg’s
triumph. Our photo showed visually impaired Wacholder looking at a
dramatically enlarged image on a Mac.

Their
ordeal had its origin in a promise by then-HUC president Nelson Glueck
in 1969. He agreed to house 1000-plus photographic images of the scrolls
lest something happen to the originals. He also agreed with scholars
controlling access to the scrolls that no one else would see the HUC
negatives while the original scrolls existed.

That
included Wacholder. To his frustration, HUC honored that promise even
after Glueck’s death and despite the growing international controversy
over restricted scholarly access to many of the original scrolls.

Today’s Biblical Archaeology Society website, biblicalarchaeology.org,
recalled how Wacholder and Abegg got lucky in 1989. Chief editor of the
scrolls John Strugnell sent a copy of a secret concordance of the Dead
Sea Scrolls to Wacholder. It “consisted of photocopies of index cards
on which every word in the unpublished scrolls was listed, including its
location and the few words surrounding it.” It was their Rosetta
Stone.

Wacholder
and Abegg programmed the Mac to apply their knowledge of ancient
literature to the data in the concordance. "I'm sick and tired of all
this waiting," he told me at the time.

In
1991, the society’s Biblical Archaeology Review published the
reconstructions, breaking the more-than-40-year-old monopoly on the
scrolls.

And
when jealous scholars challenged the accuracy of the reconstructions,
Wacholder was dismissive. "I'll match my knowing of the . . . texts -
even blind — any of them.

Wacholder
died last year. Abegg became professor and co-director of the Dead Sea
Scrolls Institute at Trinity Western University in British Columbia.

•I’ve
described my fear that the Cleveland Plain Dealer — long Ohio’s best
daily — will follow other Advance Publications into print obscurity. PD
journalists also heard the clatter of bean counters and created the
Save The Plain Dealer campaign. Earlier this year, Advance — another
name for Newhouse family publications — the New Orleans
Times-Picayune as a traditional daily. It fired lots of journalists and
now is printed three days a week to accommodate heavy advertising.
Surviving journalists also work online every day. With that innovation,
Newhouse made New Orleans America’s largest city without a daily paper.
Smaller Advance dailies suffered the same fate. Poynter.com quoted an email from PD science writer John Mangels earlier this month:

“The
multi­media campaign will begin Sunday with a half­-page ad in The Plain
Dealer, to be followed by bus and billboard ads throughout the city. TV
and radio ads will appear soon. There will be mass mailings and e­
mailings to elected officials, political and business leaders and other
people of influence. We’ll have a Facebook page with an abundance of
content, a petition on Change.org,
and a Twitter feed. We’re also working to organize community forums
where we’ll discuss the future of journalism in Northeast Ohio, and the
potential impact of the loss of the daily paper and much of its
experienced news­gathering staff.”

Later,
reached by phone, Mangels told Poynter that PD management hasn’t said
anything about Advance’s plans. “The only detail that we’ve been told by
our bosses here is that major changes are coming, layoffs in some
number are coming,” Mangels said.

•Have
you noticed how GOP aspirants for the 2016 presidential nomination are
using long-reviled mainstream news media (MSM) to distance themselves
from Romney and his disdain for retirees, veterans, Hispanics, African
Americans, and young adults? I love the GOP’s irony deficit. They’ve
spent decades teaching True Believers that the MSM is an evil, liberal
cabal, not to be trusted. Now, these same Republican 40-somethings want
voters to believe what the mainstream news media tell them about their
aspirations and sagacity. They’re also fleeing Romney’s transparent
hypocrisy and its blowback; benefits to Democratic constituencies are
meant to buy votes but benefits for GOP constituencies never, ever
should be understood as a way to woo financial support or votes.

•Here’s
an angle I haven’t encountered in post-election coverage: an almost
inevitable GOP win in 2016. Not only is a second elected term unusual
for modern Democratic presidents, but a third term for either party is
rare. Since FDR in 1940, only popular Republican Ronald Reagan was
succeeded by a Republican, George H. W. Bush. I’m not alone if my
reading to liberal columnists is a fair indicator of grudging agreement.
They want Obama to push through agendas they’ve advocated for the past
four years and to find the cajones to fight for his nominations when
they go before the Senate led by Kentucky Pride Mitch McConnell.

•Propaganda-laden
cable news and TV/radio talk shows can lull angry, fearful partisans
and voters into believing what facts refute. And I mean refute not
rebut. Anything out of sync with those GOP media was rejected as MSM
bias. Whether it was a Pavlovian response, delusional thinking or
magical realism, the result was Republican candidates, consultants,
strategists, voters and Fox News were stunned when state after state
went for Obama. Carl Rove went into a spin of denial on Fox News as
election returns came in; he believed what Fox News had been telling him
for months: Romney in a walk. What was that cliche, something about
drinking the Kool-aid?

• This
from Eric Alterman in his What Liberal Media? column in The Nation:
“They watched Fox News, read The Wall Street Journal, clicked on Drudge
and the Daily Caller, and listened to the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Hugh
Hewitt, Karl Rove, Dick Morris and Peggy Noonan promise them that their
Kenyan/Muslim/socialist/terrorist nightmare was nearly over. One
election was all that stood between them and a country without capital
gains taxes, pollution regulation, healthcare mandates, gay marriage and
abortions for rape victims.”

Alterman
continued: “The less wonderful irony involves the supporting role the
mainstream media played in this un-reality show. Post-truth politics
reached a new pinnacle this year as major MSM machers admitted to
a lack of concern with the veracity of the news their institutions
reported. ‘It’s not our job to litigate [the facts] in the paper,’ New
York Times national editor Sam Sifton told the paper’s public editor,
Margaret Sullivan, regarding phony Republican ‘voter fraud’ allegations.
‘We need to state what each side says.’ ‘The truth? C’mon, this is a
political convention’ was the headline over a column by Glenn Kessler,
the Washington Post ‘fact-checker.’ Yes, you read that right.”

How
bad was it? Alterman quoted Steve Benen, a blogger and Rachel Maddow
Show producer. He “counted fully 917 false statements made by Mitt
Romney during 2012. Just about the truest words to come out of the
campaign were those of the Romney pollster who explained, ‘We’re not
going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.’ But not only
did many members of the MSM give Romney a pass on his serial lying; they
actually endorsed his candidacy on the assumption that we need not take
seriously any of those statements the candidate had felt compelled to
make in order to win the nomination of his party.”

•In
the expanding universe of online calumny, few American public officials
or public figures strike back big time in part because of broad First
Amendment protections available to defamers. British libel law makes
it much easier for the victim to win. The latest target of false online
vilification is Lord Alistair McAlpine. BBC implicated but didn’t name
him in its spreading child abuse scandal. However, so little was left to
the imagination that in Britain’s media/politics hothouse that McAlpine
was named in myriad tweets.

BBC
quickly admitted error and paid him almost $300,000 to salve his bruised
feelings. ITV — Britain’s Independent Television — followed BBC with
apology and more than $200,000 for inadvertently accusing McAlpine of
abusing children.

McAlpine
is offering to accept a tweeted apology and modest payment from most of
the tweeters. He’s less forgiving of 20 members of Parliament,
journalists and other public officials and figures. They probably face
costly libel actions in a country where it’s almost impossible for a
defendant to win.

•Assume
every microphone in front of you is “on.” You don’t warm up with
“There once was a man from Nantucket . . . “ on the assumption that mic
is dead. Myriad public figures have ignored that Law of the Jungle to
their pain. The latest is Jonathan Sacks, Orthodox chief rabbi of Great
Britain, who delivers a “Thought for the Day” regularly on BBC radio’s
Today program.

Here’s
the Telegraph report and another statement from the overworked BBC
apology machine. After Sacks finished and apparently assumed his mic
was turned off, host Evan Davis asked, “Jonathan, before you go, you
know, any thoughts on what’s going on over in Israel and Gaza at the
moment?”

Lord Sacks sighed, before replying: “I think it has got to do with Iran, actually.”

Cohost
Sarah Montague realized Sacks did not seem to know his remarks were
being broadcast and she could be heard to whisper: “We, we’re live.”

Lord
Sacks adopted a more formal broadcasting manner and suggested the
crisis demanded “a continued prayer for peace, not only in Gaza but for
the whole region. No-one gains from violence. Not the Palestinians, not
the Israelis. This is an issue here where we must all pray for peace and
work for it.”

Later,
BBC apologized for catching Sacks off-guard. A spokesman said: “The
Chief Rabbi hadn’t realized he was still on-air and as soon as this
became apparent, we interjected. (Host) Evan likes to be spontaneous
with guests but he accepts that in this case it was inappropriate and he
has apologized to Lord Sacks. The BBC would reiterate that apology.”

•So
far, I haven’t found a news angle beyond prurience in the Petraeus
resignation. Yes, there could have been a national security issue, but
once then-spymaster Petraeus went public about his extramarital affair,
he couldn’t be blackmailed. We’ll never know how well the CIA would
have run under Petraeus, but turning it further into an almost
unaccountable paramilitary force with its fleet of deadly drones killing
Americans abroad and others would not have been in the national
interest. We need a good spy agency. Killing people you’re trying to
subvert and convert is a lousy game plan.

•Admiring
and available women are no stranger to powerful public and corporate
leaders. Generals are no exception. Neither are social climbers hoping
to use them. All that’s missing from the Petraeus soap opera is for
some just-married junior officer to claim his general exercised droit du
seigneur.

•We
can wonder what their frequently mentioned Lebanese origins have to do
with the Tampa twins’ roles in the Petraeus soap opera, or whether
Paula’s arms are fitter and better displayed than Michele’s. After that,
let’s get to the fun stuff: the ease with which law enforcement obtains
our emails.

•And
a belated Thanksgiving note. Somehow, I found a turkey on the
Copperbelt in Central Africa where I was editing the new daily Zambia
Times. I did my best to explain how to roast it with stuffing to the
cook in the house I was caring for. He served it that evening with
obvious pride. It was brown, roasted over open coal on a spit he’d
tended for hours. The stuffing was special beyond my dreams: the
sonofabitch had used the kosher salami I’d hoarded for months for
stuffing. I thanked and praised him through clenched teeth and dug in.
It was memorable. And awful.

In the Ohio House of Representatives, the difference between a Republican supermajority and a normal majority is now 14 votes.
That’s how many votes are splitting Republican Rep. Al Landis and
Democratic challenger Josh O'Farrell. The small difference has already
triggered an automatic recount and likely a series of lawsuits from
Democrats over counting provisional ballots. The supermajority would
allow Ohio House Republicans to pass legislation without worry of a
governor’s veto and place any measure on the ballot — including
personhood initiatives — without bipartisan approval.

City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr. unveiled his 2013 budget proposal at a press conference yesterday.
The proposal will pursue privatizing the city’s parking services to
help close a $34 million deficit. The privatization plan has already
faced some early criticism from Democrat P.G. Sittenfeld. The budget
will also make minor cuts elsewhere. In addition to the 2013 budget, the
Tentative Tax Budget proposal, which Dohoney passed to City Council and
the mayor yesterday, also raises property tax rates.

Councilman Chris Smitherman is facing a challenge
for his spot as president of the Cincinnati chapter of the NAACP. The
councilman’s opponent is Bob Richardson, a former officer of Laborers
Local 265 and former president of the Cincinnati AFL-CIO Labor Council.
Richardson’s son told WVXU, “I think we have seen the NAACP veer off its
core principles and turn into a tool for Smitherman and his
conservative ideas.”

The 21c Museum Hotel opened yesterday.
But the hotel has critics, including Josh Spring from the Greater
Cincinnati Homeless Coalition. Drawing a comparison to the situation between
Western & Southern and the Anna Louise Inn, Spring said the hotel
ended up displacing far too many people.

One concern with the state's “fracking” boom: water supply.
Some are worried that the amount of water needed to fuel hydraulic
fracturing, a drilling technique for oil and gas, will drain Ohio’s
wells and reservoirs.

After some sentencing reform, Ohio’s inmate population is not decreasing as fast as some state officials would like.
As the state deals with prison overpopulation and more expensive
prisons, Gov. John Kasich’s administration has turned to privatization. CityBeat looked at issues surrounding private prisons and the connections between the state government and private prison companies here.

Ohio women are having fewer abortions in the state.
The drop seems largely attributable to increased access to birth
control. Better access to health care and improved health education are
also factors.

City Council took a contentious vote on Thursday to give the city manager a pay raise and a bonus.

Those in favor of the 10 percent raise and $35,000 bonus
for Milton Dohoney say he is underpaid, has done a great job for the city
and has gone five years without a merit raise. Those opposed say it’s bad timing and sends the wrong
message when many city workers have also gone years without a pay
increase.

Dohoney was hired in August 2006. He hasn’t received a
merit raise since 2007, but has collected bonuses and cost of living
adjustments over the years. He currently makes about $232,000 and the
raise would bump that up to $255,000. Dohoney made $185,000 when he started the job.

Council approved the raise on a 6-2 vote, with councilmen Christopher Smitherman and Chris Seelbach voting against it.

Before the vote, Mayor Mark Mallory lauded the manager,
saying he set high expectations and didn’t expect Dohoney to meet them,
but the manager exceeded all of them.

“To do anything other than that
(approve the raise) is a backhanded slap in the face and actually a
statement that we want the manager gone,” Mallory said. “We are going to
give him a raise. And from where I sit we’re not giving him a big
enough raise.”

The raise came from a performance review conducted by
Democratic council members Yvette Simpson, Cecil Thomas and sole council
Republican Charlie Winburn.

Winburn said the city manager’s financial management
system is impeccable, Dohoney has pushed economic development, he has
expanded the tax base and made sacrifices by not receiving a raise for
the previous five years.

Other members of council pointed out that Dohoney isn’t the only city employee who has gone a while without a raise.

“For me, look, 4 years ago I turned down a job at Google
where I’d be making a hell of a lot more money,” Councilman P.G.
Sittenfeld told 700WLW radio host Scott Sloan. “This is public service.
This is already the city’s highest-paid employee.”

Sittenfeld missed the council meeting Thursday afternoon because he was out of town on a personal matter, according to an aide.

Sittenfeld and others have raised questions over whether
it is wise to give Dohoney a raise and bonus when the city faces an
estimated $34 million budget deficit. Councilman Wendell Young said the
raise would not hurt the budget.

Opponents also argued that it would look bad to give the
manager a raise when other city employees are dealing with wage freezes.
Police, for instance, agreed during contact negotiations this year to a
two-year wage freeze. Though they received a raise in 2009.

Smitherman said city employee unions may keep that in mind during upcoming negotiations.

"Unions are going to remember this council extended a $35,000 bonus to the city manager.”

Committee hearing filled with protesters, chants

One week after the major Democratic victories of Election
Day, Ohio’s Republican legislators are pushing HB 298, a bill that will keep federal funds from Planned Parenthood. In a Health and Aging
Committee hearing at today, Ohio Republicans voted to push the bill
through committee and into the Ohio House of Representatives floor.

If the bill passes the Republican-controlled General
Assembly and is signed by Gov. John Kasich, it will block $2 million in
federal funding from Planned Parenthood and prioritize other family
services. In the past few years, Planned Parenthood has become a popular
target for Republicans because the organization provides abortion
services. But that’s not all Planned Parenthood offers; a chart released
by the organization in February demonstrated abortions only make up 3
percent of its services.

Another criticism leveled by Planned Parenthood supporters
is the federal funding is legally barred from being used for abortions.
Instead, the funding would go to other health services within Planned
Parenthood, which provides general women’s health services to poor and
rural women.

“For the life of me, I cannot understand why Republicans
are so intent on taking away from women the right to make their own
choices about their bodies,” said Ohio Sen. Nina Turner in a statement.
“Voters soundly rejected the foolishness of the radical right on
Election Day in favor of the dignity of American women, but some
lawmakers must not have heard.”

She added, “While Republicans rail against women making
their own choices, they are cutting funding for education and critical
social services that children need after they are born. They want small
government, all right — small enough to fit into a woman’s womb.”

The strong words showcase what was a loud, feisty exchange
between Planned Parenthood supporters and Republican lawmakers. At the
committee hearings, supporters and opponents of HB 298 testified. Some
opponents cited their personal experience, including an emotional account from one
woman regarding her own rape at age 13. She said she was glad young women like her can turn to
Planned Parenthood for help.

Ohio Rep. John Carney, a Columbus Democrat,
pointed out that throughout the hearings, no health care provider
testified in favor of HB 298. One doctor testified against the bill. Carney also pointed out that no tax dollars that go to Planned Parenthood pay for abortions.

The bill isn’t the only action Republicans have recently taken against women’s health rights. Ohio Senate President Tom
Niehaus told The Cincinnati Enquirer about the possibility of a
renewed heartbeat bill on Nov. 8. In October, Kasich appointed two anti-abortion
advocates to government positions. In this week’s news commentary (“Ohio
Republicans Continue Anti-Abortion Agenda,” issue of Nov. 14), CityBeat covered the ensuing Republican campaign against abortion rights.

"Austerity budget" rejects tax increases

The Republican head of Hamilton County’s governing board
outlined his own alternative for a 2013 budget on Monday, proposing an
austere path forward after rejecting other budgets that would raise some
taxes.

Board of County Commissioners President Greg Hartmann said
his proposed budget would reduce the size of county government by 30
percent, compared to five years ago. He said he wants the board to
approve a budget before the Thanksgiving holiday.

“It is a budget of austerity and investment in growth,” Hartmann said.

He added, “It is a structurally-balanced budget,” that doesn’t use one-time sources of cash to make up for shortfalls.

Hartmann’s proposed budget would cut the Sheriff’s Department by about $57,000or
0.01 percent from 2012 levels; reduce the coroner’s appropriation by 3
percent or $99,000; cut economic development by 5 percent; cut 5
percent from adult criminal courts; and reduce subsidies to the
Communications Center and Sheriff’s Department.

Hartmann stressed that it is important to fund public
safety as fully as allowable in these tough economic times, as economic
development is not possible without it.

Hartmann’s budget comes after commissioners rejected three proposals from County Administrator Christian Sigman.

Sigman proposed $18.7 million in cuts, which Hartmann’s budget maintained in addition to his own reductions.

Two of Sigman’s proposals involved increasing the sales tax to balance the budget.

Fellow Republican Commissioner Chris Monzel said he
supports Hartmann’s efforts at austerity, but is working on his own
budget proposal as well.

“An austerity budget is the way we’re going to go, and it’s going to be hard,” he said.

The board’s sole Democrat, Todd Portune, said he too is
working on his own proposal that he had hoped to have prepared for the
Nov. 5 meeting, but was still making tweaks and hoped to present it by
the following week.

He hinted that the results of Election Day might impact how he crafts his budget proposal.

“Tomorrow’s results may have an impact as well on the
budget that I present as it relates as well to those who are running for
county seats,” Portune said. “We have in some cases two very different
visions in terms of solutions.”

Both he and Hartmann are up for re-election. Portune is
running against Libertarian Bob Frey. Neither candidate has a major
party challenger.

Hartmann, who has actively campaigned for Republican
presidential candidate Mitt Romney, had a joke in response to Portune’s
waiting for the election results.

“I thought you were predicting Romney’s win would make the
economy go on the right track,” Hartmann cracked. “I was thinking
that’s what you were going to go with.”

Compares his policies to Clinton; Romney to Bush

Just two days before the general election, President Barack Obama
made his case to 13,500 people packed into the University of Cincinnati’s Fifth
Third Arena and 2,000 in an overflow room.

Obama cast the race in comparisons to the previous two
presidents, comparing his policies with those of Bill Clinton and equating Republican
challenger Mitt Romney’s plans with those of George W. Bush.

“So stay with me then,” Obama said. “We’ve got ideas that work,
and we’ve got ideas that don’t work, so the choice should be pretty clear.”

With less than 48 hours before polls open on Election Day,
a Reuters/Ipsos daily tracking poll had Obama and his Republican challenger locked
in a statistical dead heat. However the same poll showed Obama with a slight
edge in Ohio, up 48 percent to Romney’s 44 percent.

Obama touted his first-term accomplishments, including ending the
war in Iraq; ending Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the policy preventing homosexuals
from serving openly in the military; and overhauling the country’s health care
system.

“It’s not just about policy, it’s about trust. Who do you trust?”
the president asked, flanked by a sea of supporters waving blue “Forward”
signs.

“Look, Ohio, you know me by now. You may not agree with every
decision I’ve made, Michelle doesn’t always agree with me. You may be
frustrated with the pace of change … but I say what I mean and I mean what I
say.”

Nonpartisan political fact-checker PolitiFact on Nov. 3 took a
look at Obama’s record on keeping his campaign promises from 2008. The group rated
38 percent as Kept, 16 percent Compromised and 17 percent Broken.

Twice during his speech the president was interrupted by audience
members shouting from the stands.

The first was a man on the balcony level of the arena
interrupted, shouting anti-abortion slogans and waving a sign showing mutilated
fetuses before being dragged out by about five law enforcement officers. Both were
drowned out by supporters.

Music legend Stevie Wonder opened the rally for Obama, playing a
number of his hits, opening up “Superstition” with a refrain of “on the right
track, can’t go back.”

Wonder discussed abortion policy between songs and urged Ohioans
who had not already voted to do so either early on Monday or Election Day.

So far, 28 percent of Ohio voters have already cast their
ballots. CNN reports that those votes favor Obama 63/35, according to public
polling.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Romney campaigned before an estimated crowd
of 25,000 in Pennsylvania, according to the Secret Service.

Political rallies always draw a number of the loyal opposition,
and this late-evening appearance was no different. Only five people protested
near the line to the arena, but what they lacked in number they attempted to
make up for in message.

One large sign read “Obama: 666” and another “Obama is the Beast,”
alluding to a character in the Christian Biblical book of Revelation.

A man who only identified himself as Brooks carried a large
anti-abortion sign that showed pieces of a dismembered fetus.

“I’m here to stand up for the innocent blood that has been shed
in this land to the tune of 56 million,” Brooks said. He said he was opposed to
the politics of both major party presidential candidates.

“I pray for Barack Obama because his beliefs are of the
Antichrist, just like Romney,” Brooks said.

Brooks said his message for those in line was for them to vote
for Jesus — not on the ballot, but through their actions and through candidates
that espoused Christian beliefs.

“Obama is not going to change things, Romney is not going to
change things,” Brooks said. “In the last days there are many Christs, but not
the Christ of the Bible. The Christ of the Bible is not for killing children,
is not for homosexual marriage.”

Only four days left to early-vote in person. Find out where to do that here.

U.S. employers hired 171,000 people in October and revised
job growth over the previous two months, finding it had been stronger
than previously thought. However, unemployment inched up to 7.9 percent
from 7.8 percent in September, due to more out-of-work people looking
for work. People are only considered unemployed if they’re actively
searching for work. More people entering the workforce and increased job
growth had the stock market jumping, with the Dow Jones Industrial
Average futures up 30 points within minutes of the opening bell.

COAST has been keeping busy this week. The anti-tax group
filed two lawsuits, one trying to block the sale of some land near the
former Blue Ash Airport to prevent the cash from being used for the
streetcar, and the other against Cincinnati Public Schools over
allegations that staff used school emails to promote voter registration
drives and offering to volunteer and contribute to the campaign
supporting the CPS school levy (issue 42).

The U.S. Senate race between incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown
and Ohio Treasurer Josh Mandel has been expensive, no doubt. But what
has all that money gone to? An analysis by The Enquirer shows that the
nearly $30 million spent by both campaigns on the race has gone from
everything from pollsters to Cincinnati Reds tickets to a used Jeep
Cherokee. The largest expenditure for Brown’s campaign was $1.7 million
for staff salaries, while the largest of Mandel’s expenditures was $1.7
million on TV ads.

People thinking about entering law school next year,
rejoice. Despite a dire job market for new graduates, both campaigns
have mobilized armies of lawyers in preparations to sue for votes in
battleground states. If the next election is this close, you might have a
job in four years. Assuming the Mayans were wrong about the apocalypse
and everything.

A joint committee of Cincinnati City Council met Thursday
to discuss allegations that workers at the University Square development
in Clifton aren’t being paid enough. They didn’t take any action, other
than asking the city to investigate, but agreed that there needs to be
better oversight to make sure workers on taxpayer-funded projects are
paid what they’re supposed to earn.

If you are accused of a crime in Ohio and police take your
DNA, they get to keep it on file, even if you’re acquitted. The Ohio
Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that DNA samples are like fingerprints
and can be kept even if a suspect is acquitted of a crime.

A bunch of dirty hippies “light warriors” buried hundreds
of muffin-crystal-thingies in at Serpent Mound to help realign the
energy of the ancient Native American burial mound. They were caught
because they made a YouTube video of their alleged desecration.

Hurricane Sandy slammed the East Coast last night. At
least 16 people are believed to have died from the storm, and as many
as 7.5 million were left without power. Areas of New York and New Jersey
also faced major flooding. It took until 4:30 a.m. for Sandy to go from
hurricane to tropical storm.

The Anna Louise Inn will be in court at 9 a.m. today arguing in front of the First District Court of Appeals, which could overturn a May ruling and allow the Inn to move forward with its renovation. CityBeat will have online coverage for the hearing later today.

Hamilton County’s probation department is facing
sexual harassment charges. The charges are coming from a county worker
who said her promotion was denied due to her actions “for opposing
discrimination and encouraging others to exercise their right to be free
from acts of discrimination.”

The Coalition Opposed to Additional Spending and Taxes
filed a lawsuit Friday in an attempt to reverse the August reworking of
the Blue Ash airport deal. For COAST, the lawsuit is mostly to stall or
stop the financing for the $110 million Cincinnati streetcar.

City Council will vote next week to decide whether
the city should borrow $37 million to fund development projects and a
portion of the Homeless to Homes program. But Homeless to Homes is
generating some concern due to its requirement to move three shelters.

Mitt Romney is running a new ad against President Barack
Obama in Ohio that says Chrysler is moving Jeep production to China. The
ad, which Chrysler says is false, warranted a snarky response from the
car company: “Despite clear and accurate reporting, the take has given
birth to a number of stories making readers believe that Chrysler plans
to shift all Jeep production to China from North America, and therefore
idle assembly lines and U.S. workforce. It is a leap that would be
difficult even for professional circus acrobats.” The Obama team also
responded with its own ad. It is somewhat understandable Romney would be
getting a bit desperate at this point in the race. Ohio is widely
considered the most important swing state, but aggregate polling has
Romney down 1.9 points in the state. Romney is up 0.9 points nationally.

State Republicans are refusing to pull an ad that accuses
William O’Neill, Democratic candidate for the Ohio Supreme Court, of
expressing “sympathy for rapists.” This is despite the fact that Justice
Robert Cupp, O’Neill’s Republican opponent, has distanced himself from
the ad. At this point, even the most nonpartisan, objectives watchers
have to wonder why the Republican Party can’t keep rape out of its
messaging. In comments aired first on Aug. 19, U.S. Senate candidate
Todd Akin of Missouri said on pregnancy after rape, “If it's a
legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole
thing down.” On Oct. 23, Richard Mourdock, the Senate candidate for
Indiana, said, “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came
to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life
begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that
God intended to happen.”

Ohio is getting closer to the health exchange deadline
with no plan in sight. Obamacare asks states to take up health exchanges
that act as competitive markets for different health insurance plans.
States are allowed to either accept, let the federal government run the
exchanges or take a hybrid approach. As part of the health exchanges,
the federal government will also sponsor a heavily regulated nonprofit
plan that sounds fairly similar to the public option liberals originally
wanted in Obamacare.

Meanwhile, Ohio and other states still haven’t decided
whether they will be expanding their Medicaid programs. In the past,
state officials have cited costs as a big hurdle, but one study from
Arkansas found Medicaid expansions actually saved money by reducing the
amount of uncompensated care. Some states that expanded Medicaid also
found health improvements afterward.

An inspector at the Ohio Department of Education (ODE) was
caught not doing her job. The inspector was supposed to do 128 site
visits for in-person safety inspections, but she apparently never showed
up to some of the schools and filed fraudulent reports.

Romney makes case for election at Jet Machine in Bond Hill

There are only a few more weeks of political commercials, ads, promises and accusations flooding the TV and radio before the Nov.
6 presidential election. While many Americans are tired of political
campaigning, Ohio — the most important swing state in the United States —
has been showing a great response toward the campaign as it nears its
end.

On Thursday, 4,000 people lined up outside of Jet Machine
in Bond Hill to hear Republican candidate Mitt Romney speak at 11 a.m.

After flying in to Lunken Airport on Wednesday night,
Romney had breakfast at First Watch in downtown Cincinnati on Thursday
morning before proceeding to the rally in Bond Hill.

His visit in Cincinnati was the first of a three-stop bus
tour in Ohio — along with Worthington and Defiance, Ohio later that
afternoon.

"The Obama campaign is slipping because he keeps talking
about smaller and smaller things when America has such big problems,"
Romney said.

Romney cheered on small businesses and promised that his businesses experience will help turn the economy around.

In a response to the Cincinnati rally, the Obama campaign
explained that Romney's visit was just another attempt to try and
convince Ohio workers that he is on their side and will stand up to
China, when in fact it's the opposite.

"As a corporate buyout specialist, Romney invested in
companies that pioneered the practice of shipping jobs to places like
China, shutting down American plants and firing workers — all while he
walked away with a profit," Jessica Kershaw, Obama for America — Ohio press secretary, explained.

"These jobs are likely to come at the expense of American
workers in cities like Cincinnati, and that’s why the people of Ohio
will not be supporting Mitt Romney this November.”

Romney ended the rally encouraging the Buckeye state to go to the polls and vote early.

"We need to make sure Ohio is able to send a message loud
and clear: We want real change. We want big change," Romney encouraged.

In an attempt to secure Ohio, President Obama is due in
Cincinnati on Halloween. With just two weeks remaining before election
day, a new Ohio poll from TIME.com says that Obama is winning 49 percent of Ohio, compared with Romney's 44 percent.

Claim True the Vote is unnecessarily intimidating voters

Ohio Senate Democrats sent a letter to Ohio Secretary of
State Jon Husted and Ohio Attorney General Mike DeWine on Wednesday asking them
to investigate True the Vote (TTV), a Tea Party group established to
combat alleged voter fraud. The Democrats claim TTV is unnecessarily
intimidating voters.

In the letter, the Democrats say they would find voter
fraud to be a serious problem if it was happening, but they also note
recent studies have found no evidence of widespread voter impersonation fraud. An Oct. 4
Government Accountability Office study could not document a single case
of voter impersonation fraud. A similar study by News21, a Carnegie-Knight
investigative reporting project, found a total of 10 cases of alleged
in-person voter impersonation since 2000. That’s less than one case a
year.

Tim Burke, chairman of both the Hamilton County Board of
Elections and the Hamilton County Democratic Party, says the faulty
voter registration forms, which groups like TTV typically cite as
examples of in-person voter fraud, never amount to real voter fraud.

“Those nonexistent voters never show up to vote,” he says.
“(The forms) were put together by people working on voter registration drives.
Frankly, the intent wasn’t to defraud the board of elections; the
intent was to defraud their employer into making them think they’re
doing more work.”

In other words, people aren't submitting faulty voter registration forms to skew elections; registration drive employees are submitting the forms to try to keep their jobs.

To combat the seemingly nonexistent problem of voter
impersonation fraud, TTV is planning on recruiting one million poll
watchers — people that will stand by polling places to ensure the voting
process is legitimate. The Democrats insist some of the tactics
promoted by the group are illegal. The letter claims it’s illegal for
anyone but election officials to inhibit the voting process in any way.
Most notably, Ohio law prohibits “loiter[ing] in or
about a registration or polling place during registration or the casting
and counting of ballots so as to hinder, delay, or interfere with the
conduct of the registration or election,” according to the letter.

Burke says state law allows both Democrats and Republicans
to hire observers at polling booths. However, the observers can only
watch, and they can’t challenge voters. Even if the appointed observers see suspicious
activity, they have to leave the voting area and report the activity
through other means.

The tactics adopted by TTV have an ugly history in the U.S.
Utilizing poll watchers was one way Southern officials pushed away
minority voters during the segregation era. By asking questions and
being as obstructive as possible, the poll watchers of the segregation
era intimidated black voters into not voting. In the post-segregation
era, the tactics have continued targeting minority and low-income
voters.

The Senate Democrats make note of the ugly history in their
letter: “It has traditionally focused on the voter registration lists in
minority and low-income precincts, utilizing ‘caging’ techniques to
question registrations. It has included encouraging poll watchers to
‘raise a challenge’ when certain voters tried to vote by brandishing
cameras at polling sites, asking humiliating questions of voters, and
slowing down precinct lines with unnecessary challenges and intimidating
tactics. These acts of intimidation undermine protection of the right
to vote of all citizens.”

TTV has already faced some failures in Hamilton County.
Earlier this year, the group teamed up with the Ohio Voter Integrity Project (VIP),
another Tea Party group, to file 380 challenges to the Hamilton County
Board of Elections. Of the 380 challenges, only 35 remain. The vast
majority were thrown out.

“For the most part, they tried to get a bunch of UC
students challenged because they didn’t have their dormitory rooms on
their voter registration rolls,” Burke says. “All of those were
rejected. We did nothing with those.”

But he said the group did bring up one legitimate
challenge. Some voters were still registered in a now-defunct trailer
park in Harrison, Ohio. Since the trailer park no longer exists,
Burke says no one should be voting from there. The board didn’t purge
those voters from the roll, but the board unanimously agreed to ensure those voters are challenged and sent to the correct polling place if they show up to vote.

Still, TTV insists on hunting down all the phantom
impersonators and fraudulent voters. In partnership with VIP, TTV is continuing its mission to stop all the voter impersonation that isn't actually happening.

VIP is brandishing the effort with a program of its own. That organization is now hosting special
training programs for poll workers. The organization insists
its programs are nonpartisan, but Democrats aren’t buying it.

Burke says it’s normal for Democrats and Republicans to
hire poll workers, but if the Voter Integrity Project program puts the
organization’s anti-fraud politics into the training, it could go too
far.

“The job of the poll worker is to assist voters in getting
their ballots cast correctly,” Burke says. “It’s to be helpful. It’s
not to be belligerent. It’s not to be making voters feel like they’re
doing something evil.”

He added, “If poll workers are
coming in and deciding that they’re going to be aggressive police
officers making everybody feel like they’re engaged in voter fraud and
therefore trying to intimidate voters, that’s absolutely wrong.”